agrochemicals -tasting, testing, the haunted qi...

Post Reply
User avatar
wave_code
Posts: 575
Joined: Wed Nov 21, 2018 2:10 pm
Location: Germany

Mon Oct 11, 2021 9:30 am

This general subject has of course come up a lot here in various ways, but its something important and interesting enough that I thought consolidating some of our insights/observations in one collective place was important. We want to know what we are drinking, we want to make conscientious and healthy choices, and sometimes this can be easier said than done. But, we can use our and other drinkers' experience to help. Some of us have more experience from the commercial side with sourcing/direct connection to farmers and processors in different regions, some as very experienced drinkers, and some of us are for better or worse more sensitive to certain effects/notes than others.

Tasting
I saw that last year GTH published an issue with a two tea sample pack and I quickly read through the text. Unfortunately a lot of it was fluff (thus the scanning vs reading) and I think a missed opportunity to provide more direct and factual information. There were a couple paragraphs actually detailing how to taste using a standard tasting set and scattered bits about what to smell, taste, and feel for- though most of these are things anyone who has been drinking for a while should eventually pick up on. What I would have been more interested in is if there are distinct characteristics one can notice in tea from particular chemicals which would be widely used- do they impart a certain aroma, taste, mouth feel or body sensation we can use as potential markers? Of course there are plenty of unpleasant sensations we can get from a tea that could be confused as or even mask other notes - gutbomb sheng, scratchy throat from over roasting or unrested tea, incorporation of wild tea varietals that our body doesn't like, and learning to distinguish these is another task.

Testing
Actual testing is another area of interest to me, and of course the only foolproof way of knowing what is in/on a tea... sort of. I know testing isn't cheap, but I have been curious to find an affordable lab here in Europe just out of my own curiosity. I haven't looked much in to this yet myself, but I imagine in an age of portable PCR machines that at least certain common pesticides might be detectable using simple kits or very simple set ups with hopefully some reliable degree of accuracy. If anyone has any information of experience with this please do share. I notice more factory teas like those from COFCO are including test reports - though I haven't looked at them in detail or translated them to pay attention to what exactly they are testing for. I am guessing one reason for these is to try and help with export to places like the EU which have quite strict regulation and/or increase consumer confidence- however if customs would actually accept a foreign issued report as acceptable seems unlikely to me anyway and that they will require additional testing anyway if they choose to control.

"Organic"
Does anyone have a translation or happen to know what exactly defines the 'organic' standard in China, Taiwan, India, and other tea growing regions? To me organic farming as a concept in general is difficult and flawed - from what I can recall USDA of regulations organic by definition means nothing in terms of forbidding pesticide, fertilizer, or other chemical uses as long as those chemicals fit within certain designations and/or a product leaves no detectable trace in the finished product. It doesn't imply fair farming practices, biodynamics, regional ecosystem protection, so on, and I think these are important things to keep in mind. In many ways through both changes in land use and through economic practices the demand for cheap certified 'Organic' vegetables in Europe results in the displacement of traditional/regional farmers and farming practices as much as heavily industrialized agrochemical farming does - I have no doubt such an effect is not exclusive to this region.

Time
Another thing that I feel already may have fallen in to the suspicious tea lore category already but I see becoming completely impossible to use in the future was the ability to use a teas age as a possible, though not guaranteed way, of avoiding chemicals. Basically the idea that old teas produced at times when prices were so low or teas that were produced so roughly (for example Yunnan bricks exported to Tibet) that the price of chemicals to even treat such tea outstripped its value. Having never seen any economic hard facts on this it seems plausible to me on one hand and very much not on the other- lab chemicals produced for widespread commercial use are generally cheap to produce in bulk, and probably even cheaper to produce when they are less stringently regulated. I have no idea when the first commercial modern agrochemical pesticides were produced aside from knowing when DDT came and went, much less when they came in to use in China or other areas. I believe neonicotinoids go as far back to the 70s? We have of course had a wide variety natural 'pesticides' basically since the advent of agriculture such a neem, etc. However, even if we were once able to use a teas production period to avoid chemicals I see this already being inaccessible for most and unusable in the future- how many people can only afford to drink highly aged pu-erh with the market as it is already? Going forward from that as teas of today or the past couple decades when pesticide use would have been common place or at least more likely become expensive simple buying 'aged' tea will absolutely not be a guarantee.
User avatar
mbanu
Posts: 962
Joined: Fri May 03, 2019 3:45 pm

Thu Oct 14, 2021 11:42 am

I don't think it will be an answer people are happy with, but large farms (Indian estates and Chinese state-run plantations) are likely to be cleaner because they will most likely have a particular person whose job is to understand agrochemicals. In a small family farm, people may use them, but it does not necessarily mean they understand them, which can lead to misuse. This catches up with many people in the end, though, as this also often means not taking the appropriate safety precautions, which can cause health problems for workers.

If the tea tastes weird, though, I would make sure to rule out unsuccessful adulteration. There are many ways to doctor a tea that should improve the sale price, but only when done well.

As far as organic goes, this depends on reciprocal agreements. If something is labeled organic in one country, that does not necessarily mean the other country agrees. Some countries also have trouble with counterfeit certifications, which can make reciprocal agreements more complicated. For instance, in the United States, the core organic idea is based on a series of private groups, some of which are more dedicated to guarding their endorsement than others, and then there is a government-endorsement through the USDA. It's almost like a non-religious way of figuring out if something is kosher or halal, private groups interacting with government programs in countries that have decided to take an active role. :D
User avatar
Bok
Vendor
Posts: 5782
Joined: Wed Oct 04, 2017 8:55 am
Location: Taiwan

Sat Dec 11, 2021 12:27 am

Just saw this on a road trip. Tea grown next to a busy two lane road… the farmer might not use chemicals, but exhausts surely are not natural. And it’s not an exception the whole area next to these roads is full of tea plantations.
Attachments
01CBDD4E-4691-4C6D-96F2-610FFD0AFBED.jpeg
01CBDD4E-4691-4C6D-96F2-610FFD0AFBED.jpeg (311.53 KiB) Viewed 1075 times
Post Reply